Dawn Potter| Song: The Famous Vision of America

     after Hayden Carruth

The birds come and go at the feeders,
        but so few.
I long for flocks of finches but all I get
is a single sparrow flitting in from the maples,
a lone nuthatch, upside down, then gone.
 
I don’t know why it pains me,
            this lack.
Perhaps it’s a fear that I haven’t passed
some necessary bird test,
haven’t intuited their deepest desires.
 
Used to be, every calf I met
            would eat out of my hand.
How long has it been
since I’ve felt an eager wet nose
thrusting against my cupped palms?
 
There was an emptiness, in that greedy snuffling
            touch;
an emptiness, too, in the bright
flicker of a cardinal on my back fence.
Too easy an ending to say that it’s mine.

Dawn Potter’s many books include Chestnut Ridge (Deerbrook Editions, 2019).

Copyright 2021 Dawn Potter